Quote#Politics & Power
In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal…
Quote byAdam Ferguson · 1723–1816
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), PART IV, SECTION II..
English (original)
In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many.
— Adam Ferguson
More from Adam Ferguson
Men are to be estimated, not from what they know, but from what they are able to perform.
Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops and companies.
We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.
The attainments of the parent do not descend in the blood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as a physical mutation of the species.
Love is an affection which carries the attention of the mind beyond itself, and is the sense of a relation to some fellow creature as to its object.
The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning.